Memphis long term sustainability: The elephant in the room (Germantown: cul-de-sac, 2013)
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perhaps lowering the fear of gentrification will help. the other is instead of running the rich off, make them feel welcome and safe.
just an idea.
first step make peabody hotel area safe enough that an armed guard does not have to stand out in front of rendezvous in broad daylight and the 6 ft 4 manager of the parking garage in the alley does not have to hide in a locked booth.
Some long-term solutions in my humble opinion:
1. We are going to need some more young hipster Whites to gentrify other areas outside of Downtown and Mid-town. Maybe start with North Memphis since it is already close to Mid-Town.
Some form of that is happening in north Memphis. However the leadership must stop approving more and more new subdivisions further and further east. The other issue is that if you want to attract 'hipsters' (of whatever race) then Memphis needs more mixed use developments
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2. Create a second major University in the area. Perhaps West Tennessee State University
More realistic option is to invest in South West Community College. But I see what you are getting at. Imagine how different Memphis would be if Ole Miss was in Southaven instead of Oxford; Arkansas State was in West Memphis instead of Jonesboro and UT-Martin was in Millington. That didn't happen so it is what it is.
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3. Either extend I-22 from the Mississippi border on lamar all the way to the loop (This can be done by building an elevated portion through the industrial and business portions of lamar) or extend 385 past the 240 loop.
There is a long term plan to extend 385 into Mississippi. However that will only benefit more sprawl.
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6. Light Rail. At a bare minimum three lines.
Excellent idea, then finally Memphis could foster some transit oriented development. But again, that is not going to happen.
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8. ELECT A YOUNGER MAYOR. Our mayor is old and not a good look for a city trying portray it self as a young progressive city.
The good news is that there are term limits and the current leadership (including Fullilove) will be gone in a few years
Some form of that is happening in north Memphis. However the leadership must stop approving more and more new subdivisions further and further east. The other issue is that if you want to attract 'hipsters' (of whatever race) then Memphis needs more mixed use developments
More realistic option is to invest in South West Community College. But I see what you are getting at. Imagine how different Memphis would be if Ole Miss was in Southaven instead of Oxford; Arkansas State was in West Memphis instead of Jonesboro and UT-Martin was in Millington. That didn't happen so it is what it is.
There is a long term plan to extend 385 into Mississippi. However that will only benefit more sprawl.
Excellent idea, then finally Memphis could foster some transit oriented development. But again, that is not going to happen.
The good news is that there are term limits and the current leadership (including Fullilove) will be gone in a few years
Exactly. Compare Shelby county Tennessee and Hinds Mississippi. Jackson Mississippi has Belhaven, Mississippi College, Millsaps, Jackson State, Tougaloo college. Five four year colleges in one city/county. Memphis has Lemoyne owen, University of Memphis, Rhodes, and Victory. Only four four year colleges. Memphis 650,000 people and shelby county a million. Jackson Mississippi only has 170,000 people and hinds county 250,000. Also you speak of regional colleges like UT-Martin, Arkansas State, and Ole Miss. Jackson has Mississippi State, University of Southern Mississippi, Alcorn State, Mississippi Valley State, and LSU all within similar distances. I wholeheartedly believe Jackson will surpass Memphis in progression in the next 20 years. Jackson will be come like Huntsville, Alabama while Memphis tumbles to Detroit status.
I wholeheartedly believe Jackson will surpass Memphis in progression in the next 20 years. Jackson will be come like Huntsville, Alabama while Memphis tumbles to Detroit status.
Well, I'm not sure I would go that far. Jackson has many of the same problems that Memphis has (poor public transportation, bad leadership, sprawl) but can't annex its way to growth.
Well, I'm not sure I would go that far. Jackson has many of the same problems that Memphis has (poor public transportation, bad leadership, sprawl) but can't annex its way to growth.
Jackson has bad public transit. Jackson does not have sprawl. A lot of people who live in rankin or madison county do not even work in Jackson. Mostly government workers commute to jackson from outside Hinds county. Secondly Jackson's bad leadership in no way compares to Memphis government which has a national reputation. Also both cities are majority Black. It is going to take radical change to fix the situation. Chokwe Lumumba was elected mayor of Jackson. If you are White and concerned you should not be. He is simply trying to get Blacks to be self reliant. That is what most conservatives in America advocate. Memphis Blacks would never elect such a leader to lead them. So I can guarantee Chokwe Lumumba will address significant expansion of public transit before A.C.
Why? Because Chokwe will come from the standpoint of adequate public transit being a universal right.
But I acknowledge my response on Jackson becoming like Huntsville while Memphis would become Detroit is extreme. I am just going with my gut.
I can understand the Memphis/Detroit comparison. Both have relatively affluent suburbs, and a ring of wasteland surrounding a dynamic and creative core city. Make no mistake, no matter what is happening in Bartlett or Collierville, the creative nexus of this city lies within a few blocks around South Main. There are other outposts (a smattering here and there in Midtown, probably some burbs stuff), but the main creativity is downtown.
There is definitely an argument to be made (however extreme this sounds) for returning parts of Memphis to farmland or forests. Just off the top of my head, Patricia Heights and Ridgegrove in Frayser fit this criteria. Hell, parts of SoFo and South Memphis are already mostly vacant land.
There is definitely an argument to be made (however extreme this sounds) for returning parts of Memphis to farmland or forests. Just off the top of my head, Patricia Heights and Ridgegrove in Frayser fit this criteria. Hell, parts of SoFo and South Memphis are already mostly vacant land.
Absolutely. Part of the reason Memphis' public transportation is so poor is that the footprint of the city is massive. In terms of square miles, Memphis is BIGGER than NYC (the five Burroughs) but obviously much more sparsely populated. With the population centers being so far away from each other, it makes it difficult to run an efficient public transportation system. That is why (going back to the OP's post) it takes so long to get around on the bus. The population needs to be dispersed more densely, but the constuction codes will not allow for it
Are you familiar with the Unified Development Code? I know what it means for Midtown and downtown, not so sure of its prescription for the suburbs and East Memphis.
Memphis planning office keeps permitting suburban sprawl. Definitely know that. Not even ADA accessible stuff.
The elephant in the room is Memphis's questionable ability to pay the bills in the long term. They can't simply address shortfall by raising property tax rates. That only pushes higher income earners and homeowners out to the suburbs and depresses city property values, which lowers tax revenue. It's a dangerous cycle and it will only get worse until the city can figure out a way to seriously tighten its belt in a way that isn't plainly visible to taxpayers. There's plenty of fat to cut.
For starters (and many cities need to take this advice)....No one my age has defined benefits anymore in the private sector. They are not required anymore to provide competitive compensation. Switch public employees to defined contribution plans. That will pay off in a huge way in 10-20 years assuming there are enough working people still around to pay for the cushy retirement of all these damn baby boomers....and if the city fails to meet its obligations in the future, people with defined contribution plans won't have to risk losing their retirement savings.
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Originally Posted by Darkseid
Some form of that is happening in north Memphis. However the leadership must stop approving more and more new subdivisions further and further east. The other issue is that if you want to attract 'hipsters' (of whatever race) then Memphis needs more mixed use developments
You can build them....doesn't mean people will actually live there. The reason subdivisions are developed "out east" are because developers know they can sell homes there. People are willing to live there. Refusing to approve subdivisions will just spur demand for new housing in Fayette County, Desoto County, or one of the many surrounding suburban communities that would love to see an influx of dual income couples, their spending power (to support suburban business), and their children (for ADA public school funding).
Sprawl is not the problem...sprawl is just a highly visible symptom of very serious issues happening in urban areas throughout America. Cities like Memphis create environments that squeeze the middle class out. They make themselves less competitive and less attractive than the suburbs by maintaining high taxes and providing terrible public services...most notably, public schools.
The best way to attract younger professionals is to encourage the companies and industries that hire them to locate or expand in Memphis. FedEx, International Paper, Autozone, and a tiny bit of "big academia" that exists in Memphis will only go so far. Memphis is too large for just that. It needs another big Fortune 500 company somewhere in the metro and a dozen or more regional corporate studs (Hilton Worldwide, Medtronics, etc.) to attract young people after they earn their degree.
Neighborhoods within the city of Memphis that lack culturally or visually districtive homes and neighborhoods or happen to be in an inconvenient location are not going to get better. I'll go ahead and say that the public schools (a CRITICAL public service) within the city won't be improved in my lifetime. Young professionals without children are going to move into places like mid town or south main, but they'll largely choose suburbs after they age and have kids. Memphis needs a steady stream of young professionals with high income and no children to feed to provide demand for housing in these gentrifying neighborhoods, buying plane tickets to exotic vacation spots, and purchasing products from local retailers and high profile national chains.
Otherwise....the city will decay rapidly, suburban growth will slow or stop completely, business opportunity here will appear dead, and the metro area will become stagnant. The hard working, high income people slowly die off or move somewhere else while their children choose Nashville or Atlanta after they graduate from a competitive university.
There is a long term plan to extend 385 into Mississippi. However that will only benefit more sprawl.
Memphis is a distribution hub. Better highway and rail infrastructure will help significantly. The proposed I-269 was part of a larger I-69 project that extends from Mexico to Canada. This would help link other areas more directly to Memphis and encourage interstate commerce......but federal funding for I-69 was halted a couple of years ago.
Now we have a loop with no additional connections to other metros- not even Dyersburg or Union City. Memphis really needs I-69 complete between Texas and Indianapolis to continue to be a competitive freight hub. The investment the state put into 385 will not be fully realized without more links to other major markets. We need more efficient connections to places like Kansas City, Indianapolis, and to large markets to our west.
Memphis also needs the southern Gateway bridge to be built yesterday. The plans were for it to house freight rail lines and bridge southwest shelby county industrial areas to the world west of the Mississippi. You may not like the kind of industrial businesses that are locating (and locating pretty quickly) to the massive industrial developments in far southestern Shelby....but they are critical for the regional economy. With more freight rail and highway connections, we can eventually market some of the old blighted industrial properties in north and south Memphis to new users who want to locate here (provided the taxes are low). Those are high compensation skilled and unskilled jobs that we can't turn away.
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